BACKGROUND: As the war to replace the Saddam Hussein regime
in Iraq continues, protesters on the political left continue to
claim that the U.S. government's military action is designed to
acquire Iraqi oil.1

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: Gulf War II is properly understood as the continuation
and completion of Gulf War I. The U.S. could buy Iraq's oil for
less money than the war will cost.

THIRTY SECOND RESPONSE: If American war protesters genuinely
believe the U.S. has gone to war for oil, they should advocate
the use of economically and technologically feasible energy alternatives.
Yet, many of these protesters not only oppose U.S. domestic oil
drilling, such as in ANWR, but other pollution-free energy alternatives,
such as nuclear power.

DISCUSSION: Anti-oil war protesters tend to oppose domestic
oil drilling while supporting alternatives to oil such as hydrogen.

In a March 17 Weekly Standard article,
writer William Tucker notes that replacing oil with hydrogen ignores
a critical fact: "...there is no source of free hydrogen
in the world. Supplies will come from either 1) the electrolysis
of water, which requires electricity, or 2) stripping hydrogen
from natural gas."2

Option #2 is made unnecessarily difficult
by the political left's opposition to domestic natural gas drilling.
The left also objects to measures necessary for generating electricity,
such as coal mining and burning, building and operating dams,
and/or building and operating nuclear power plants.

Political opposition on the left has stalled
development of alternatives to oil. Ironically, given that peace
activists are involved, it also has made the world more dangerous.
The new generation of nuclear power technology, so-called "fast"
reactors, don't pollute, leave little nuclear waste to be stored
or shipped and generate no byproduct that could be used to build
nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we don't have any "fast"
reactor plants and none are scheduled for construction. Nuclear
power isn't politically correct.

Peace activists who genuinely believe
the war in Iraq is about oil should love nuclear power and the
possibility of a new generation of "fast" nuclear reactors
even more.

Strangely, they don't seem to.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

"The Permanent Energy Crisis and
the Solution we Keep Ignoring" by William Tucker, Weekly
Standard, March 17, 2003, available to registered users of the
Weekly Standard's website at: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/002/337hxxgp.asp
as of March 22, 2003.

"Reprocessing, Waste and Bombs: Good
News on the Energy Front" by Gerald E. Marsh and George S.
Stanford, National Center for Public Policy Research National
Policy Analysis #364, available online at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA365.html.

"Integral Fast Reactors: Source of
Safe, Abundant, Non-Polluting Power: by George S. Stanford, Ph.D.,
National Center for Public Policy Research National Policy Analysis
#378, available online at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html.

"Government Restrictions on Domestic
Energy Development Contribute to U.S. Dependence on Foreign Oil"
by John Carlisle, National Center for Public Policy Research National
Policy Analysis #305, available online at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA305.html.

by Amy Ridenour, President
The National Center for Public Policy Research

Contact the author at: 202-543-4110
x110 or [email protected]
The National Center for Public Policy Research
501 Capitol Court, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002

Footnotes:

1 See, among other sources, the Associated Press
description of several anti-war protesters in front of the White
House on March 22, 2003 chanting "no blood for oil."
The protesters then pushed a policeman off his bicycle, and two
were arrested. This AP story was available on the Foxnews.com
website at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81890,00.htmlunder
the heading "Tens of Thousands March Against War in New York,
Washington" as of March 22, 2003.

2 William Tucker, "The Permanent Energy Crisis
and the Solution we Keep Ignoring," Weekly Standard, March
17, 2003.

3 Gerald E. Marsh and George S. Stanford, "Reprocessing,
Waste and Bombs: Good News on the Energy Front," National
Center for Public Policy Research National Policy Analysis #364,
September 2001, available online at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA365.html.